An international advisory panel on reducing dietary salt and sugar is meeting in Hong Kong for two days to explore ways to promote a healthy diet.
In a Centre for Food Safety press briefing today, panel members said successful promotion relies on collaboration among the government, food trade and consumers.
The panel advises the food trade to make greater efforts to reformulate food recipes to provide more quality food with less sodium and salts. Consumers should read nutrition labels and change to a light flavoured eating habit, the centre said.
Too much salt in a diet can increase the risk of developing hypertension, fatal stroke and coronary heart disease, while too much sugar intake would affect body weight and cause dental caries.
The World Health Organisation recommends a maximum sodium intake of 2,000 milligrams daily, equivalent to 5 grams of salt. It has set a relative 30% reduction in salt intake as a target by 2025.
For sugars, less than 50 grams of free sugar - equal to about 10 sugar cubes a day - is the maximum suggested.
